Beware of computer "repair shops"


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I work at one. I will not say where or the name of the place. But let me tell you, some really stupid **** is done in these places.

If you MUST take your comp in, I sugest you backup your porn or whatever to disks and erase it from your HD.

Why? Because we techs will find it, we will laugh, and we will show everyone else our finds. Now we almost never go out looking for it, but if we stumble upon it while attempting to repair something or just do general upkeeping (cleaning useless files from the comp, etc) we will laugh, and depending on what it is, we may save it. ;) Heh. But we will always remember who that guy was who had the video of the 4 guys having sex with each other.... always. Don't be that guy. Hide your stuff. (PS. Making it hidden, does not hide it, we show all files by default whilst doing upkeeps.)

Now, here's some of the things that go on in the store/shop, most of which I don't condone, but will go along with, since it is a paying job:

1. Reinstalling the OS on top of itself (without format, etc), is common practice where I work to solve most "problems". I guess the boss just feels it'll save more time that way. This is retarded IMO.

2. Overcharging of prices is the norm as well. And it wouldn't be so bad but the parts are ****TY brands!!!! Ugh. We get burners that 1 out of 3 fail right out of the box. Btw, things he buys for $60, he'll sell at like $100-$110. Mark up is hell.

3. My boss is basically also the sales rep. Unfortunately, he's also a money-hungry-troll. Sadly, he will try to convince people they need more of a system than they really do. One guy came in with a HP 466 Celeron system the other day. Granted it was a bit wimpy, but my boss was trying to sell an Athlon XP1900 to the guy!!!! Argh! This guy that came in only does web surfing, email, the occassional online board game, and general office apps (Word, Excel, etc). Nothing hard core. Nothing to warrant that much power. Though, I had some time alone with him and explained that he didn't need to upgrade to that type of system, and that even a 1Ghz system would be MORE than enough for him. I think he understood. Luckily though, he didn't take boss' offer. I just hate to see people waste their money.

Hrm, I'm tired. I'll write more on this subject later. I'm open to most questions btw. Heh. Just be careful if you ever have to take your system in, and find out EXACTLY what they did, and how they fixed each problem. Some of the solutions may cause other problems later on.

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I have been suspicous of several repairs done by compusa...including a fixing of IRQ's...hmm isnt it managed by the OS?

Anyway, I only go to support for hardware issues, I can solve most software issues with a small reformat. :p

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If I ever open up a computer repair store, I will:

1) Respect the people's privacy and not look at anyone's documents.

2) Format the OS at last resort. Even so, backups will be done for them.

3) Charge a reasonable price, and back it up with an optional extended warranty service!

What do you guys think about my ambition? I'm 15 years old, and it's unlikely for 15-year-olds to have ambitions at my school... :p

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Originally posted by Pyro

hmm what would happen if they stumbled across 200gb of warez ? :p

Boss wouldn't do anything... we techs though would burn copies of whatever we deemed useful ;) heh... why don't you stop by one day, we'd love to repair your comp ;)

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When my boss calls a local repair to fix the crap he does I usually fight with everyone, INCLUDING the techs. They do more crap than they actually fix. There's one tech that when he sees me, he closes his hand as if he wanted to punch me...

Bring it on, knuckle-head! :p

PS: I laughed on his face and called him a dumbass, and told him to leave the office... not something nice, but some techs ARE dumbasses. And the ones that are not , OR go psycho or move to another job. Do you guys agree with me?

EDIT: Now that I've reviewed my post, I found out that this describes what the user feels, not what the tech feels. And I went a bit off-topic, also. But oh well, I won't delete my post :p

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LOL;

I worked as an @Home PC Installation Tech, for about 2yrs, goto people's house setup Cable Interent Connection, You can only imagine the things I find on PC's, and I try not too snoop either.

I've seen many things, but the best was when I was working on a customer's (husband's) computer, the wife of the computer user was sitting next to me watching me work etc..

As I was testing everything to complete the Install checklist, I tested the scanner completely, I don't usually put anything on the scanner if it scanned abit of an image, it works for me, anyways I decided to let the scanner run completely and on the scanner were nudes pics the hubby took of his wife while she's on the bed spread out.

She was so embaressed and p*ssed, as she didn't realise the hubby was scanning these pics to post on the net.

It was the funniest experience of doing an installation, would've been funner if I got some piece of action. :p

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Originally posted by ToastGodSupreme

Boss wouldn't do anything... we techs though would burn copies of whatever we deemed useful ;) heh... why don't you stop by one day, we'd love to repair your comp ;)

sure ill stop by :roll: hehe with the FBI waiting at the door heh

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Originally posted by Pyro

sure ill stop by :roll: hehe with the FBI waiting at the door heh

And bringing with you a box full of warez? That doesn't sound right :paranoid:

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Originally posted by xpablo

LOL;

I worked as an @Home PC Installation Tech, for about 2yrs, goto people's house setup Cable Interent Connection, You can only imagine the things I find on PC's, and I try not too snoop either.

I've seen many things, but the best was when I was working on a customer's (husband's) computer, the wife of the computer user was sitting next to me watching me work etc..

As I was testing everything to complete the Install checklist, I tested the scanner completely, I don't usually put anything on the scanner if it scanned abit of an image, it works for me, anyways I decided to let the scanner run completely and on the scanner were nudes pics the hubby took of his wife while she's on the bed spread out.

She was so embaressed and p*ssed, as she didn't realise the hubby was scanning these pics to post on the net.

It was the funniest experience of doing an installation, would've been funner if I got some piece of action. :p

hahah i hope you saved those pics on disk, why not post em here ? j/k lol was she hot ?

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Originally posted by sunnyy4

If I ever open up a computer repair store, I will:

1) Respect the people's privacy and not look at anyone's documents.

2) Format the OS at last resort. Even so, backups will be done for them.

3) Charge a reasonable price, and back it up with an optional extended warranty service!

What do you guys think about my ambition? I'm 15 years old, and it's unlikely for 15-year-olds to have ambitions at my school... :p

Like I said, we don't actively snoop, but we can't help ourselves if we see a folder called something like "CallGirls" or "LiveVids". I mean, seriously. We HAVE to look. And these are in the C: directory most of the time. Heh.

Doing a clean install is always last resort, but boss insists we install on top of the existing OS. No format, no nadda, just reinstall windows. Ugh. And for certain people, we do backup their data to CDs just in case. One guy who comes in has perpetual problems so we've gone to backing his stuff up each time to cds. It's actually come in handy when recovering stuff for him. Heh.

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Originally posted by Kusanagi

And bringing with you a box full of warez? That doesn't sound right :paranoid:

who ever sed he had warez??..he just asked wut would they do if they stumbled across 200gb of warez ?

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Originally posted by Lun4

who ever sed he had warez??..he just asked wut would they do if they stumbled across 200gb of warez ?

I "consider" he has 200gb of warez... :p

Well, prolly not true, but you never know... :cheeky:

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Originally posted by Pyro

nah come on, wait r we counting on cd's or only on HD ? lol still not saying i have any.

If it's cds, then... :roll:

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hmm i just though.. if the FBI went to every house and removed everyones warez then ppl would want it back so bad they might buy it althught most would just get it back heh.

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The good thing of burning warez on cd is that when the feds break onto your place, you can throw everything through the window, then get it back later ;)

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hmm it would take a normal user a couple weeks to gather everything :p if its like $400,000 for 1 proggie then i think alot of poepl ewould be in debt in the billions.

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Originally posted by Pyro

forgot to add if it is on a HD then if they brake in a swift kick to the side of your computer can save your life.

Just coat the HD in thermite and have the ignitor wired to a nice little switch or something... ;)

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